Kitchen Renovation on a Budget

ladajasaNovember 11, 2012

We are about to embark on a kitchen renovation, however are restricted with budget and have high expectations. My husband is very handy and enjoys projects. I am throwing out a couple of questions: my sister has heard of people driving to Plain and Fancy in PA and saving 30% on cabinetry by going direct... I am unable to substantiate this... does anyone have experience with this? Are their any places that you are familiar with that provide this type of savings? We are from Arlington, MA and are willing to travel and pick things up to create our dream kitchen. FYI: my dream designer is Barbara Barry, I like clean neutral colors and design and we will need everything from windows to the kitchen sink. Thanks!

If Plain and Fancy does that , they are breaking thousands of contracts with Cabinetry Dealers, maybe in the bad economy they are comfortable with it, I don't know. There are plenty of local shops who would work with you directly if you have a good design skill set to do your own design, or if you have an interior designer, who may work with someone directly and get whatever discount they can. First, you need know what your budget is, is it 20K for everything or is it 100K. 20K is not going to buy Plain and Fancy for a medium size kitchen even if they have decided to undercut their dealers by selling direct, and I don't think you have to drive there, that's what email is for. Don't be afraid to contact your dream designer, they may have a referral to someone less expensive who you could work with.

Why not spend some time with a kitchen planner at Home Depot or Lowes ..... and even consider their unfinished cabinets and paint them a color (before installation) like an ivory or sage with a walnut glaze? IKEA also has a great online kitchen planner (Lowe's is good too) to help you conceptualize prior to spending time @ the big box stores. You can save money by buying sink & faucets online (www.faucet.com or signaturehardware.com) and the same with lighting. Depending on your 'style', you could also do high end base cabinets (with all the bells & whistles) and unfinished (& then paint/finished as described above). And often Lowes or Home Depot have 10-20% off those cabinets AND you could do a bit of financing thru them with their card.

Check out your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. At my local store, many of the cabinet sets are used ones taken out for a remodel. But, you can also find new discontinued cabinets, store models, model home kitchens and sometimes even new sets. One of the donated sets was very large, brand new with lots of options like soft close drawers, pullout shelves, etc. Someone goofed and the cabinetry had the wrong color finish so the entire set was donated to Habitat. It was at least $10K of cabinets (probably more) and sold for $2500.

Some other donations are often fairly new, very high end designer kitchens that a new owner just doesn't like. In one case, a pro athlete bought a new condo and didn't like the super modern style cabinets so he arranged to donate the entire kitchen and a volunteer crew went in and removed it for resale.

Thank you so much for your advise. I actually will explore all three of your ideas. Our budget is in the process of being finalized so will have a better idea of which direction we need to go. My this is so expensive!